'I didn’t realize how much danger we were all in,' Kamloops man recalls of ‘nightmare’ ordeal

Kelly Sinoski and Kim Nursall, Vancouver Sun05.23.2012

For seven hours, Young was held hostage in the home Kamloops’ Dufferin neighbourhood, during which time Crosby showed her all of the bombs he was ready to use. After he released her to police negotiators, Crosby detonated the explosives strapped to his chest, engulfing the rented home in a fiery blaze.Keith Anderson/Murray Mitchell
/ Kamloops Daily News

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KAMLOOPS — Sherry Young and Dave Madore were helping their children out of the car last Thursday evening when a white van pulled up behind them and the driver, Denann Crosby, got out and started walking toward them, carrying a long box in his right hand.

Madore immediately sensed trouble, but “I didn’t realize how much danger we were all in,” he said in a written statement obtained by CFJC-TV in Kamloops.

That would become clear just seconds later, when an agitated Crosby, upset that Young wouldn’t speak with him, told her: “You should have talked to me. You ruined my f---ing life.”

It was then that Madore noticed the shotgun hidden beneath the box in Crosby’s hand.

“He must have noticed the surprised expression on my face as he said: ‘that’s right. Don’t f--- with me. It’s a sawed-off shotgun,’ ” Madore recalled. “‘ ‘I also have five kilos of explosives strapped to my body.’ ”

Instinctively, Madore turned and walked toward the house, his back the only shield between the gun and the children as his girlfriend calmly urged them to go inside. “It was all I could do to protect them,” Madore wrote. “The gun was aimed at my back the entire way to the house.”

As they entered the house, Young, 44, tried to close the door to keep Crosby out. He had a “crazed and wild look in his eyes.” But as he pressed to get in, said Young, the force of the door caused his finger to pull the trigger. The gun fired. “Miraculously the shot fired up into the ceiling and harmed no one,” she said in the statement.

The shotgun blast prompted Madore to hit the ground, feeling dazed and almost deaf. He then jumped up, and fled toward the garage, his screaming three-year-old in his arms. He then ran to a neighbour’s house to call for help, while Young’s 11-year-old son climbed out a window and fled to Canadian Tire to call 911.

Seconds later, Young’s 13-year-old daughter, carrying Madore’s four-year-old daughter on her back, fled from the back of the house, with her young sister and brother in tow. “She saved herself and three other lives that day,” Madore said.

Young, meanwhile, faced off against Crosby, who forced her at gunpoint into the furnace room where the 48-year-old said he was “going to snap the gas line and blow up the house with me in it,” she wrote.

While the exact nature of their relationship is unknown, Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned said Crosby “was very consumed with his feelings” for Young. The Learned said the pair had dated for a few months last year, and Crosby had helped Young move into the rented home on Kamloops’ Cannel Drive in January. During that time, he had never mistreated Young, said Learned.

“Everyone suggested that when he was ultimately rejected or told that she didn’t want to pursue a relationship, he was having a difficult time letting go,” he said. “No one who knew him could have foreseen this course of action because it was not typical of his behaviour.”

Young has since told CFJC that, while she knew Crosby, they were never in a relationship.

For seven hours, Young was held hostage in the home in Kamloops’ Dufferin neighbourhood, during which time Crosby showed her all of the bombs he was ready to use. After he released her to police negotiators, Crosby detonated the explosives strapped to his chest, engulfing the rented home in a fiery blaze.

Young credits RCMP Sgt. Ben Rodrigue with saving her life. Because of Rodrigue’s negotiation efforts, she said, Crosby released her before destroying himself and the house.

Crosby was a Langley electrician who was working in Kamloops. B.C. Regional coroner Mark Coleman said he doubts an autopsy will be necessary because the man died of injuries suffered during the explosion and ensuing fire.

Other than a traffic ticket in 2005, no information on Crosby is available. He has not been involved in any criminal or civil cases, and owns no property.

A Radio-Canada reporter has been arrested for alleged criminal harassment while pursuing the subject of a story. According to Radio-Canada, reporter Antoine Trépanier was arrested Tuesday night by Gatineau police. He was released on a promise to appear in court. Trépanier was called by Gatineau police Tuesday evening and an officer requested that he come […]

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